(I posted this message in the other thread, too.)
Let me point something out.
The guy at The Register has many serious flaws in his "findings". Obviously, some people aren't well-versed in statistics.
1) A lot of those letters didn't say if they were really Mac users or not. How do you know they aren't PC users who are looking to the Mac, but decided to abandon it because of Aqua?
2) How do you know this is an accurate slice of the Mac users? For all we know, it could be that Mac users who read The Register are prominently OS 9 users, and not OS X users. It would be like coming to MacOSX.com, and taking a poll on whether the MacOS X was a good operating system -- obviously, because of the name of this site, most people here use OS X and would rate it well. It cannot be determined if the e-mails that this author received is an accurate slice of the Mac users, so his "statistics" are totally invalid. There can be no discussion on this point, because we need an accurate piece of the Mac users before we make any conclusions. Period.
3) This is a point that many might argue is wrong. But I wouldn't put it past this guy (since he obviously hates Aqua) at The Register to post most of the e-mails that hate Aqua, and then only include some of them that like Aqua, so that it appears he is correct. Because any e-mails go through HIS hands, he can manipulate the data any way he wants. So, again, we cannot draw any conclusions from the e-mails he got because of this possibility. Note that I am saying it is a possibility.
4) The author only received e-mails from people who are connected to the internet. The author only received e-mails from people who SAW the article. This introduces TREMENDOUS BIAS. Just this makes the statistic flawed.
So, no, you cannot say that most Mac users hate or have serious reservations about aqua.
Let me reiterate, and I will base this statement solely on point 2 and 4 above. The Register's portrayal of Mac users hating Aqua is a fundamentally flawed statistic, and therefore it should not, and cannot, be taken seriously. Even if 100% of the e-mails this author receives hate Aqua, it still cannot be said that most Mac users hate aqua.
If you want to find out a TRUE proportion of Mac users who hate aqua, you would need to: 1) Get a list of all Mac users. 2) Get a random number table or generator. 3) Use the random number generator to randomly pick a select few Mac users. 4) Call the randomly picked Mac users up, and ask them if their opinion of Aqua. Only THEN would this be an accurate statistic. But obviously, this isn't a feasible experiment. The closest you would get is to get a phone book for, say, Santa Clara county in California. Then use a random number generator to pick, say, 10000 people. Call them up. First ask if they are Mac users. If they are, then ask their opinion about Aqua. If they are not, then discard them from the study. You would have to do this region by region. If you want to get a true proportion of Mac users who hate Aqua in the US, you'd have to get a list of all the people in the US, and randomly select people that way (averaging the proportions of regions would not be a valid statistic because you have stratified, or grouped, via region).
Sorry, The Register. I do not believe you that most Mac users hate Aqua.